CHERUB: The Fall (21 page)

Anna whispered anxiously from across the room. ‘Hang up!’

‘Sorry, Anna doesn’t want to speak to you,’ Lauren said.

‘I’m Anna’s friend and I want to help her. I can tell her where Georgy is.’

Lauren looked up from the phone. ‘He says he knows where Georgy is.’

The room was dark, but there was enough light for Lauren to see Anna twisting her face uncertainly as she crossed the room and grabbed the mobile.

‘Hello,’ Anna said nervously.

‘Anna,’ the man said in a gentle voice.

Anna made a choking noise. ‘Mr Broushka.’

‘You made us a promise, Anna. We took a lot of risks and paid a lot of money to take you to England. All we asked was for you to come and work in our factory to pay off your debts.’

Anna didn’t answer; she just gawped at the phone.

‘I know where Georgy is,’ the man said reassuringly.

‘Where?’

‘I’ll tell you all about it when I come to collect you.’

Anna smiled. ‘So you don’t know where I am?’

‘You owe us money, Anna. You should have called us sooner. You shouldn’t have run away.’

‘I
didn’t
run,’ Anna said. ‘They left me on the boat.’

‘Where are you, Anna?’

Lauren shook her head frantically.

‘If you don’t tell me, Georgy might have a fall,’ Mr Broushka purred. ‘Or maybe he’ll reach up and pull a saucepan of boiling water down on himself.’

‘I’m,’ Anna spluttered, but she snapped the phone shut and threw it back at Lauren. She collapsed against the bed and started sobbing. ‘They …’

‘Who was he, Anna?’

‘Mr Broushka was an old man who used to fix things at our children’s home. They didn’t have any money for maintenance, so he’d help out, mending broken windows, replacing light bulbs. He used to be friendly to all the kids; not like the staff who were as mean as hell. Sometimes he’d bring us hot pies from the bakery and cheap toys for Georgy and the little kids.

‘After a while, he started telling us about this cousin who had a factory in England. He said it was very hard for them to get staff. He asked if some of us girls wanted to work there, almost joking at first. But we kept asking him about it, practically begging him to fix us up with jobs in England when we were older.

‘It went on for ages. Mr Broushka laid it on thick, telling us how we’d live in nice houses and have lots of money in England. He said there were lots of English men who’d marry such beautiful girls and then we’d get citizenship. Then one night, he told us that his cousin was in town and that we could go and meet him if we wanted to.

‘There was me and eight other girls and we all broke curfew and got on a bus to the river front. When we arrived, Mr Broushka told all of us to get inside a truck. A couple of the older girls wanted to know what was going on, but there were other men there – gangsters – and when two of them tried to get away, the men started slapping and kicking them. They pulled baseball bats and bundled us all in the truck. They said we were going to be travelling for several days and that if any of us made a fuss we’d be …’

Anna stopped to sob and Lauren grabbed her hand.

‘The men said that they would rape us.’

*

James woke up at 6 a.m., to ice on his bedroom window and a severe weather warning on the radio. He peeked between the slats of his blind and was delighted to see the trees and lawns of CHERUB campus under a layer of white frost. This meant he could go back to bed for another hour and a half.

James grabbed his telephone and called the main campus switchboard. ‘Hi, I need to be put through to Kevin Sumner’s room in the junior block.’

After three rings, a young boy answered with a yawn and a hello.

‘Is Kevin there?’ James asked.

‘Nah, he’s had to go off to the training compound.’

‘Already?’ James moaned. ‘But I’m not supposed to be meeting him there for another forty-five minutes.’

‘Well he’s not here.’

‘Does he have a mobile?’

‘Yeah, but it’s here on the table.’

James shook his head and tutted. ‘Listen, if you do see Kevin tell him that it’s James and I’m cancelling his training session. It’s too dangerous to climb up the obstacle in this weather. It’ll be covered with ice.’

‘I’m telling you he’s already gone,’ the kid insisted.

‘OK, cheers. I’ll take my mobile with me, so if he does turn up, make sure he gives me a call so I don’t have to go all the way out there.’

After putting the phone down, James wondered if he’d got the time mixed up in his head. But he’d discussed it with Kevin on the walk back from the medical unit and he could distinctly remember saying 6:45.

‘Oh well,’ James muttered to himself. ‘You can stand out there and freeze your butt off for half an hour if you want.’

James listened to the news and sport on his radio as he used the toilet, got dressed and blasted some instant porridge in his microwave, all the while hoping for the call from Kevin that would mean he could get back in bed instead of going out into the cold.

When it didn’t come, he wrapped up warm in a CHERUB-issue green skiing jacket, thick gloves and a hat with ear flaps. He was in a foul mood as he jogged in the crisp morning air, knowing that he could have gone straight back to bed if Kevin hadn’t left the junior block so ridiculously early.

It took twelve minutes to reach the height obstacle, but there was no sign of Kevin. James figured that the cold might have got to Kevin’s bladder and made him disappear into the trees for a leak.

‘Hey?’ James shouted. ‘Kev, are you out there?’

‘Yoo-hoo,’ Kevin shouted, from up high.

James looked towards the sky and was shocked to see Kevin’s outline silhouetted against the rising sun. He’d made it across the scaffold poles to the second platform.

‘What the
hell
are you doing?’ James yelled.

‘What the hell does it look like I’m doing?’ Kevin yelled back.

‘Don’t move, you lunatic. It’s too icy.’

‘The scaffold poles
were
pretty hairy,’ Kevin grinned.

James noticed that the rescue rope he’d used the night before was still dangling down from the platform. ‘Come down on the rope,’ he called. ‘Seriously, it’s not safe up there.’

‘We’ve got nets,’ Kevin said, starting to walk towards the third platform. This involved crossing a series of wooden planks and leaping over gaps between them. ‘Maybe I’ll break a few bones. Well so what? Why do you care, bully boy?’

‘Come down
now
,’ James screamed. ‘I’m ordering you.’

James couldn’t look as Kevin leapt a metre and a half between the ends of two planks.

‘If you want me, come and get me!’

James thought about Bruce screaming his head off in the medical centre the night before and the sight of his horribly twisted leg. It had freaked James out, but had apparently had the opposite effect on Kevin.

James considered staying on the ground, but he was worried that Kevin might freak out or slip and need help, so he reluctantly began clambering through the netting, until he reached the dangling rope.

By the time James got to the platform, Kevin had made a series of jumps and was more than thirty metres ahead of him. He was shocked to see that the planks were slippery with frost and ice, broken only by Kevin’s boot prints.

James didn’t fancy it one bit, but he’d come this far. He made the first two jumps easily enough, but the third was on to a plank that was slightly offset and he felt his boot skid alarmingly as he landed. With more luck than skill, James managed to stay on by grabbing hold of an overhanging branch and countered his sliding boot by leaning in the opposite direction. James had been through so much on missions that it wasn’t
the
most frightening moment of his life, but it ran the leading contenders pretty close.

‘Careful, old timer,’ Kevin shouted cockily, from his position on a square platform at the end of the jumps.

James steamed along the next plank and made a simple jump on to the platform. He adopted a bullying tone. ‘What do you think you’re doing, you nutter? It’s like a skating rink up here.’

‘I want my grey T-shirt,’ Kevin yelled. ‘I want to get through basic training and become an agent more than anything else in the world.’

James crouched down and felt under the platform. He was relieved to find an escape rope, identical to the one he’d climbed up. He was still shaken from his skid and couldn’t manage to keep up his training instructor persona.

‘We can come back tomorrow, Kev. It’s great that your confidence has built up so quickly, but—’

‘I’m going heel to toe,’ Kevin said, referring to the final section of the course.

When James first went over the height obstacle three years earlier, it had ended with a sheer drop on to a large gym mat. But the tree that supported the final platform had rotted and Mr Large had used the repair work as an opportunity to design a much scarier final section.

It now involved walking down a steeply sloping plank that was narrower than a CHERUB combat boot, before whizzing down a rope slide to the ground. Just to make life even more difficult, a large pond had been dug and you had to jump off the swing while you were still several metres off the ground. Jump too soon and you’d break your legs, jump too late and you got a soaking. And to make sure that the soaking didn’t appeal on a hot day, the pond had been stocked with glutinous brown algae that smelled like rotting meat.

‘You can’t go down the ramp in this weather,’ James said, grabbing Kevin by his sleeve. ‘It’s lethal.’

But Kevin twisted and broke free. Like everyone who’d been at CHERUB for a few years, Kevin had spent hundreds of hours in the dojo learning combat skills. James towered over the ten-year-old and was probably double his weight, but he still didn’t fancy tussling with him on an icy wooden platform thirty metres above the ground.

‘Sod you then,’ James snarled. ‘Ignore me. Show me how brave you are. Just don’t blame me if you get tangled in a net and end up like Bruce.’

‘I’m not brave,’ Kevin shouted, somehow managing to sound sad and defiant at the same time. ‘I’ve never been so scared in my life. But I want to be a cherub. If I can get over here when it’s all iced up, any other time is gonna be a piece of cake.’

‘I wash my hands,’ James said, as he theatrically rubbed them together. ‘There’s not much I can do short of punching you out and lowering you down on a rope.’

‘You can wish me luck,’ Kevin said as he stepped off the platform and placed a boot on to the steeply sloping beam.

James could hardly bear to look as Kevin balanced precariously on the slippery plank. James had been over it dozens of times, but when it was dry you could take a short run up and make it down in eight nervous steps. With ice on the plank your boot would skid off sideways.

After three steps, Kevin’s front boot slipped. After controlling a wobble, he looked back towards the top and realised that he’d bitten off more than he could chew. James frantically reached under the platform to unbuckle the rescue rope. It was meant for getting to the ground, but he reckoned he could throw the end out for Kevin to grab hold of.

As the rope dropped through the branches, James looked up and saw that Kevin had turned around and now had one knee resting on the plank. Next, the youngster rested his hands on the wood and let his feet slip over the sides so that he sat astride it.

James couldn’t help but smile. If you came up with a group, the instructor would scream abuse and make you run punishment laps if you shuffled along a plank instead of walking, but it wasn’t actually breaking any rules. The only rule was that Kevin had to get across the obstacle without any assistance.

With his chest resting against the beam and his arms wrapped around it, Kevin tried to control his descent. But the angle was steep and the rough wood shredded his sleeves. When he thumped into the base of the final platform, he screamed – then swung his leg around, before stepping off and looking over his shoulder. James was on the previous platform ten metres away, but he could see the giant splinter of wood sticking out of Kevin’s bum.

‘Don’t pull it out,’ James yelled. ‘Leave it there, in case you’ve ruptured a vein or an artery.’

Kevin limped to the front of the platform and grabbed a metre of damp nylon rope out of a plastic dustbin. He slung one end over the main rope that led down to the ground and gripped the rubber handles on each end.

‘Wait until you clear the last tree,’ James shouted. ‘Then count two seconds and let go, or you’ll crash into the pond.’

‘Gotcha,’ Kevin nodded.

James had no intention of following Kevin over the icy beam. He grabbed the escape rope and was lowering himself over the side as Kevin launched himself off the platform.

‘SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT,’ Kevin screamed, picking up speed as the branches skimmed against his legs.

James was less than half-way down when everything went silent. Desperate to know if Kevin was OK, he clambered through fifty metres of undergrowth, before breaking out on to the flat expanse of grass where the rope slide ended.

‘Kevin!’ James called anxiously. ‘Are you OK?’

Lots of kids mistimed letting go of the rope the first couple of times they tried it. Although injuries were usually restricted to sprained ankles and cut knees, Kevin’s silence was giving James visions of shattered limbs and concussions.

‘Over here,’ Kevin shouted.

James sprinted towards the pool. Kevin had let go a little bit late and ended up with his legs in the stinking water, but he was already on his feet and limping breathlessly towards James.

‘I bloody did it,’ Kevin grinned. ‘Basic training here I come!’

James knew Kevin still had a mountain to climb: during basic training he’d be expected to complete the obstacle in less than three minutes with a fifteen-kilogram pack on his back. But this was a moment for celebration, not harsh reality.

‘Well done, mate,’ James grinned back. ‘Not bad. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it was pretty damned impressive for someone who wouldn’t jump off a metre-high barrel two nights ago.’

‘I want to be a cherub,’ Kevin said. ‘When Bruce shoved me off the platform last night, I was
so
scared. I actually wet my pants on the way down.’